A Crock-Pot is one of the simplest and most trustworthy pieces of home-ec tech there is. Its hallowed history dates back nearly half a century. That ultra-basic interface—High, Low and Warm temperatures, plus a timer—is so foolproof there seems no reason to make it "smarter."

So, when news came in January of a Smart Crock-Pot with Wi-Fi and the ability to be controlled by smartphone, I was thrown for a loop. As an enthusiastic home cook and professional gadget nerd, I welcome new kitchen technologies. But the very idea of a networked slow-cooker stokes a debate that won't soon end: Just because you can connect anything to the Internet, should you?

Still, the slow-cooker is the one high-temperature kitchen appliance that we gladly leave on when we're out of the house. That's basically its point: If I want to make pulled pork but am nervous about leaving my oven unattended, out comes the Crock-Pot.

The Kolibree electric toothbrush senses how long and how well a person brushes their teeth, and it tracks the information on phones. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

For my first test, I made chili. You still have to go through the prep work the old-fashioned way, with knife and cutting board and can opener. I browned my beef ahead of time (optional, but preferred), then dumped all of my ingredients into the familiar stoneware vat. But instead of reaching for any knobs or buttons on the front of the device, I launched an app on my phone to set temperature and time.

The machine fired up, eventually reaching a simmer. The app kept track of time and alerted me with a pop-up message when my three-hour stew was ready for mass consumption. If I had wanted to bump the temperature from High to Low or adjust the cook time, I could easily do that whether I was down the street or half a world away.

I am happy to report that the $130 Smart Crock-Pot works as billed. While it's part of Belkin's WeMo connected-home system, there's no sense tying it into other automated services that WeMo supports—mainly lighting and cameras for now. Still, the app did the job. Even when I ran up against a remote access issue, a tech-support rep easily explained and resolved the problem. (It's one unlikely to occur with most people, as it resulted from an environment with multiple wireless networks—and was exacerbated by my own impatience.)

It was at that point that the greater existential questions surrounding a Smart Crock-Pot began surfacing: When would I really need this? Is it worth the extra $50? And is it smart enough?

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The Crock-Pot® Smart Slow Cooker is controlled using an app called WeMo, allowing you to check in on what you're cooking when you're out of the house.
Emily Prapuolenis/The Wall Street Journal

There are a few obvious uses for remotely controlling a slow-cooker. Many recipes instruct you to raise the cooking temperature at the end, or lower it from the High setting halfway through. More often, there are occasions when I am ahead of schedule and wish my food were cooking faster, or am late and want to put the brakes on my meal. In rare circumstances, I may want to toss ingredients into the cooker, but not fire it up until later (while obeying all rules of food safety, of course).

My wife, herself a fan of one-pot cooking, agreed that the Internet connectivity helped, simply because she would like to be able to check the timer while sitting at her desk.

But were we kidding ourselves? Given my occupation, I feared I was perhaps too eager to give this technology a pass. So I called the most no-nonsense home cook I know, someone who still uses the same electric knife she got for a wedding present 44 years ago: my mother-in-law Lynda.

When I said I was testing a smartphone-controlled Crock-Pot, she burst out laughing. Something about the juxtaposition of timeless kitchen classic and the latest electronic trend cracks people up. So I was surprised that, after the laughter subsided, she proceeded to rattle off many of the same scenarios I had thought up for this device.

She really likes the idea of a delayed cooking start. As she points out, even on the Warm setting, which maintains food just above 140 degrees Fahrenheit once the timer runs out, meat continues to cook.

"I'm not going to add it to my Amazon wish list," she said of the Smart Crock-Pot, "but I would use it."

Then she surprised me further by saying she would actually like a networked oven, too.

Her mother used to put a roast in the oven before church on Sundays, then pull it out when the family got home. Lynda would like an updated version of this: If she has a roast in the oven but gets sidetracked, she'd like to pull out her phone and cut the heat so her meat doesn't overcook.

That suggestion reminded me of what's missing from the Smart Crock-Pot I tested: a temperature probe.

The deliberately simple slow-cooker method has helped skilled crockers whip up beautiful meals for decades. But knowing one simple number, the internal temperature of your hunk of meat, tells you a lot about what's going on with your food. Competing slow-cookers have probes, so why didn't Jarden, the keeper of the hallowed Crock-Pot brand, include one in its smartest model?

There's also a $100 Crock-Pot that lets you tell it what you're cooking and when you want it ready. "It does all the thinking for you," according to its Web promo. Why would I not want that as part of the Smart Crock-Pot package?

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The Smart Crock-Pot's app allows cooks far from the kitchen to adjust the heat and the time at which they wish their meal to be ready.
Emily Prapuolenis/The Wall Street Journal

"We wanted the first version to be very simple and approachable," said
Lori Gonzalez,
vice president and general manager of Jarden Consumer Solutions. "We're focusing on a very basic benefit to consumers: Control your meal from anywhere. We kept functionality very basic so people wouldn't be intimidated by it." She did say that future versions of the WeMo app would let the Smart Crock-Pot perform functions like its sibling and that the company could "absolutely see the benefit" of features like a probe.

Whether you're tickled or terrified by the notion of an Internet-connected piece of crockery, please realize: This is happening. This fall, Jarden itself will also sell a networked Mr. Coffee machine and a line of Holmes-branded smart air products—some which may eventually interact with the Crock-Pot via the WeMo system. (Cooking smells getting too heady? On goes the air purifier.)

Five years from now, it's likely that most slow cookers will be smartphone-controlled. For now, if you need a new one, the feature is simply one of many to consider.

Any business leader ought to know that at the company picnic you are not going to cook chili with a crock-pot with this recipe and stand in the corner with your iPhone. Instead you have to dress up with a chef's hat and apron and stand behind a table and stir a big pot continuously so you don't have to remember your employee's names when they come up and talk with you. And you are going to keep your recipe a trade secret no matter how it turns out.

As for home cooking chili, again success requires stirring a big pot, keeping busy while others do the real work, while watching the big game and talking with family and friends in the kitchen for the hours it takes to cook, not hiding with your iPhone. Chef's hat optional, maybe not the apron.

Slow cookers are used each week by thousands of Jewish women (and men) to prepare cholent, a traditional stew that is a staple for Shabbos (the Sabbath), as Jews are forbidden to light a fire (or turn on electricity) on the Sabbath. This might be great for those who work outside the home and need extra help getting ready.

I'm an experienced, pretty good cook (including many crock pot dishes), and I love technology (just got a new iPhone 5s), but this is overkill to say the least.

Remote apps for monitoring a temp probe on the grill or oven is good. Apps for remotely monitoring & controlling kitchen machinery is a good idea. But, if you need this for doing crock pot cooking (any kind of low-and-slow cooking), then you really should leave the cooking to someone else...

May I suggest you gift this "smart" slow cooker to your mother-in-law and replace with sous-vide. Meat cooked in a vacuum bag submerged in liquid does not lose juices, does soften the tough connective tissue, and does not overcook even cooked for hours at a low temperature. Vegetables and starch cooked in separate bags are not soggy. Braising is a fine way to cook but you can also do that in a sous-vide cooker such as mine. I use a large rice cooker (all you need is a control to turn on and off, externally programmed) into which I put a temperature probe from a sous-vide controller box with timer and temperature control. Although the controller costs more than a crockpot, one can also attach it to a Raspberry Pi and add wi-fi control and have a really smart gadget that not only meets your requirements but also cooks better.

Gee, what a novel idea. If you attach a 350 cubic-inch V-8 engine to it, you could call it a race car, too. But why bother?

Why not design a Crockpot with a clock and number pad (like on a microwave oven) where one can set start & stop times, temp settings, and such, instead of hooking into the Internet? The same results can be achieved without the risk of hackers hijacking your food prep.

@Victor Berrellez I much prefer a crockpot with a manual switch rather than the electronic keypad that would be used for the device you describe. Manual switches, with some care, last decades; electronic keypads, only a few years.

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